Before Dawn

BEFORE DAWN

“Some nights are made for torture, or reflection, or the savoring of loneliness.” - Poppy Brite

The night is an amazing alchemist, it's the drug that relieves us of all pain. The night ends with a person closing the eyes, blackening of the world. The night belongs to the poets, the artists, the passionate ones, even the murderers. The day belongs to the workers- the producers, night to the inventors. The fire in their minds eclipse the darkness of the night. A faint sound of a vacuum consumes the mind and elicits a response. All evil, fears and dangers lurk in the minds of the men(humans) at night. Technically, dawn is the 'first appearance of daylight' but as is the case with all words-it has many underlying meanings.

People return home after a day's work, all drained and tired. They need to 'unwind' i.e. a way in which the spent energy could be regained. Energy, as we know, can neither be created nor can it be destroyed. Therefore it is only logical to spent the energy prudently. A person always diverges towards sleep, into the hush of the night, the harmonizing of the conscious and the subconscious. This is where-'night' comes into action. The apparently soulless world acts as a perfect catalyst. All that a person needs to know is , to close the eyes. Glimpses of the day-gone-by flashes in front of the closed ocular. If a graph could be plot, this shall be the period of latency- the low bar. The brain then emphasizes upon a crucial aspect of the day that might have left its mark, this is the peak. The thoughts linger upon this particular 'scene', as I put it. The scene could be joyous or sorrowful. It persists for quite an amount of time. Some people are so disturbed by it that they wake up sweating bullets.

The silence of the night dons various sentiments. It toys with the involuntary mind in a way that it dictates the following day. Our defenses weaken just before we are about to enter the wonderland. Perhaps, a way of the nature Force, to finally make us come to terms with ourselves rather than running away from it all. The paralysis removes the resistance that we may pose, to hinder the penultimate meeting with ourselves. We dream of what we want to do, either by lucid dreaming or by quilting the subconscious with our desires. Be it a dream to sing, to dance, to invent, to innovate etc., it always begins with a dream. As the flashes of both worlds- the days-gone-by and the day-to-come, come into contact with each other, a feature film is produced. The actors are those we came across, the days-gone-by, the director is the brain, the day-to-come. And during the entire phenomenon, we lose the power to refuse to sit through a painful story. Maybe because it is based on true story, in the brutally truest manner. The truth can be a powerful weapon, of choice, that can burden the wings of a bird and make it lose its gift of flying or. It can also be strong pharos of hope. Whichever it may be, for a limited time it disconnects the wires of the brain that connects it with the realms of reality. Add to this recipe, a pinch of creativity and imagination and the film en routes to a blockbuster. The current scenario of a franchise development is a mirror to our subconscious. When you know what makes you happy, you want to achieve that high, repeatedly. 

That said about dreams, let us digress towards the nightmares. The nightmares are the involuntary, the indispensable fears that project themselves when we are at our weakest. They are capable of breaking a person's reasoning, if not dealt with. It always results from the feelings of anxiety, fatigue. We are born runners, as toddlers as well as adults. We tend to run away from the things that question our authority, our importance and even our existence. As dangerous as it might sound, it can be dealt with. The potency of our mind is not restricted by our spurious notion of 'always being in control'. Consciously we might rush away from the monsters of our minds but, at night we understand the fragility of a living being- loneliness. The world we created, the one we want to live in, is governed by the bulk that surrounds itself by the cranial fortress. As we finally face the reality, the imaginative monsters; we panic. Thus, hypertension, dilation of the blood vessels and shortness of breaths follow. That's the maximum exercise one can get while lying down, like a vegetable, only living. The society of bones and tissues then becomes, a mere biosphere for the millions of the microorganisms inhabiting it. Suspiciously, the word 'lie' is a double entendre. We can also lie lying down and also lie down and lie. One can lie all day or lie all day. Depending on the intention of the user, it can be a double-edged sword. 

As we transit from one REM cycle to the next, we have an interval in-between. No one truly knows what the brain plans for the next screening, but it shall undoubtedly be important. The deepest desires, the scariest of fears manifest themselves while we remain supine for hours. The night truly holds the secrets of the men for it witnesses the veracious human being, in all their wildness. The men, who change their behavior with the change of their inhabitant dominion, akin to the turning of the night into the day. The two different sides of the coin is what makes a coin worthy, provides it with identity. We are who we are, and who we want to be; we require only to be aware of the truer self, if not- it shall be revealed to us right before dawn. 

“Let every dawn of morning be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.” - John Ruskin